DOE Regulations - Air Conditioning

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whirlcool

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 29, 2005
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9,618
Location
Just North Of Houston, Texas
I heard on the radio today that the US Department of Energy is at it again. These are the same people who brought you washing machines that only fill half way, and dishwashers that use hardly any water.They are pleased with the outcome of how they were able to get Americans to do their laundry the way the government wants them to do it, not how the end used wants it done.

So now they are going to screw with air conditioning systems in the south and southwest. Maybe your a/c will only run 15 min out of every hour? Maybe not let you cool more than a 10F difference between indoors/outdoors? Those are only my sarcastic guesses, but anything is possible.

They seem to forget that a lot of cities in the south didn't really grow until air conditioning came on the scene. Looks like the days of the window A/C unit are numbered while split systems are exempt from these new regulations. Could this be some version of corporate welfare for the makers of split systems?

 
Seems far too excessive.

Instead of wasting energy by turning system on for 15 minutes of every hour, why not just ban the A/C outright if you're that hell bent on "saving the planet?"

I do, however, appreciate your energy standards of efficiency for A/C units. Australian systems are stuck at a SEER equivalent of between 8-10 (I speak primarily of larger ducted systems here, not those annoying "ductless minis-splits").
A system that would essentially be a bolt-on-replacement of our 1980's unit (8-SEER) uses just 3% less power to produce about 1/2-ton of cooling less. So, if if it were sized the same as the present system, it could very well be less efficient. The system I speak of is a Daikin (Commercial) Ducted System - which DOES meet present energy-efficiency standard for Australia.
 
New DOE Energy Usage Standards For Central A/Cs Etc

They look great to me and long overdue, I see nothing in these standards that are going to reduce peoples comfort and their ability to keep their homes as cool or warm as they desire, in fact with more efficient equipment greater comfort will be easier to achieve for millions of customers and even more people can afford to live in the Southwest.

 

Hi-Efficiency A/C systems generally not only perform their job better but also last MUCH longer. When I bought my home in 1975 I installed a Whirlpool power saver central A/C system with a 9.6 EER this A/C [ now used with a newer gas furnace with a ECM fan motor ] is still running strong and delivering an SEER of around 13 and you can barely hear it running 10 feet away from the condensing unit.

 

Give me a HE A/C anytime, this type of standard helps millions of people live better and reduces the income gap between rich and poor. Builders can no longer stick middle and lower income people with cheap inefficient systems that they have to spend more money to run while only rich folks can afford to buy the good equipment.

 

John L.
 
Might be a good idea to read consumer reviews

of the new fangled HVAC. Like washing machines, they've been loaded up with cheap electronics in an attempt to woooo and wow the intellectual neanderthanls among us.

Go on, read up on them. Controller boards shitting the bed after 1-2 years and the massive costs necessary to replace them.

2 stage gas valves getting stuck on 1st stage when it's 10 below outside.

ECM motors that yes, do run efficiently but lack the necessary durability. And are very costly to replace.

Then research the microchannel condensing units. Want a good laugh? Research how many units end up getting replaced because the cheap aluminum condenser coils spring leaks and are nearly impossible to fix.

Like the laundry side of things, the all knowing gooobermint has seen fit to micromanage us to the nth degree. Little regard is given to the expense to the owner. Tell a senior citizen on a fixed income that no, we can't simply fix your leak in your AC, you need a whole new unit. Will that be cash, check, or credit please?

Of course none of this really surprises me. After all, twice this country voted for a leader that made no bones about his energy agenda. Going green has and will cost you. Plenty.

Glad my dad still has his old, outdated r-22 supplied RUUD heat pump. Been running just fine in the hot south Florida sunshine. All copper. No controller boards or other electronic junk. It just works. Well other than the Mexican sourced fan motors that have an 18-24 month lifespan anyway.

How's the change working out boys?
 
I have learned over the years that people just want something cheap that will do the job. They don't want no fancy/schmansy name on their equipment, they want it to work at the cheapest cost possible. They will always look for cheap. And with cheap you don't always get reliability. Hell, with some of the better names you still don't get reliability.
 
The changes are basically just bringing the minimum from 13 SEER to 14 SEER. Not really a bad thing, and the actual units are nearly identical if not identical already.

I went on a tear to make this house as tight as possible at one point, added insulation, ran around the attic sealing as many holes as I could, tightening doors etc. none of it really made a difference in the bottom line. I've come to realize that there just wasn't a whole lot to improve on this 1990 house without tearing it down and building from scratch with "green" in mind and even then probably wouldn't be a huge improvement. The only thing that really needs to be done is to replace all the leaky exterior doors, which would probably effect comfort more then the utility bill.

Our highest costs are in the winter with gas/electric bills upwards of $300+, hot summers can be close to that as well. This one has been so cold our bill is the lowest I've ever seen it in July, and it's not like the A/C hasn't been on either it just hasn't run hardly at all!
 
It is time to turn off your air conditioners and get out there. All this nonsense about global warming stems from people who live in artificial and climate controlled environments all their lives and who are unable to cope with nature as a result. As soon as the mercury hits the high seventies, low eighties, people moan and groan about how hot it is. Loose some pounds and turn off the air con. It is okay to glisten on a hot summer's day. Live a little.
 
In this subdivision(1992-94) they used Trane for the outdoor part of the a/c units and a no name "AeroStar" furnace and air handler. Most people thought and were told that the heating & a/c units were by Trane. No they weren't, just the outside units. You only discovered this if you went up into the attic and looked for yourself.

We finally replaced it all in 2011 with a complete American Standard unit. Our biggest electric bill has been $102. since then whereas we used to pay about $180 in the summertime. And it can hold the house at a constant 76F no matter what the temp is outside. Our last unit could only hold 80F during the afternoons in constant run mode and the temp inside wouldn't drop until the sun went down.

There is a company in Houston here that is offering a "Lifetime Air Conditioning System". They advertise that before they install a new unit at your house they take a standard unit and modify and upgrade it to a new "reliability standard" and then install it at your home. If it ever breaks while you are the owner of the house they will come out and fix it for free! Even 20 years down the road! I wonder what they do to the a/c units to make them this reliable? Or are they counting on the fact that most people no longer live in the same home for 20 years? [this post was last edited: 7/25/2015-15:10]
 
Seems to me the issue of reliability is different from efficiency. There's no reason you can't have both. It's likely that the manufacturers would have cut corners even in the absence of efficiency standards.

Higher standards will be boon to renters, as John L says. I used to be a renter and was stuck with a pretty substandard Janitrol unit of about 10 SEER on the AC and a gas furnace with an inefficient standing pilot that heated the place in the summer and cost a fortune in the coldest months. There was no hope that the landlord would ever upgrade. I could afford it but some of my neighbors were clearly shocked by their bills and people rarely stayed more than two years.
 
Are a/c units subject to the same chicanery that dishwasher, washers and toilets are? I.e.:

 

-Lo-Flo toilet doesn't do the job so you just flush twice.

-DW doesn't wash on regular cycle so you use pot-scrubber or wash twice.

-Clothes not clean and/or still full of soap? Just run them through again.

 

I wonder if it's possible to wind up with a super-duper high efficiency '8,000' btu a/c unit that's actually 5 or 6,000 btu and/or doesn't dehumidify as well as the older, lower efficiency ones.  Then in the real world the compressor would just be going 24/7...

 

Jim 

 

 

 

 
 
That's basically the summary of all higher efficiency systems. They put smaller compressors in and increase the condenser/evaporator size and effectively get the same overall capacity as before. The downsides to this are decreased dehumidification, and they're more susceptible to performance decreases with dirty coils in extreme weather then older systems.

In reality though, 13 SEER systems dehumidify about as well as the older 10 SEER systems did, and the issue of being more susceptible to reduced capacity due to dirty coils/extreme weather isn't that common. The higher efficiency systems 16 SEER and up are more prone to problems like that, which is why they have workarounds to the dehumidification problem like variable speed blowers that can be slowed down from the thermostat if RH gets too high and much more complex systems that actually control every operating aspect including the blower speed at all times (kinda like a car HVAC system) or even the newer inverter drive compressors that are constantly variable in capacity.

I know I'm not talking about window units but the same applies pretty much, those things are inherently not very efficient though so I'm not sure how they'll ever get them up to "super efficient" status. The only model I can think of that might already comply is the Friedrich Kuhl series and I know those are huge and cost an arm and a leg.
 
Southwest-out tht way you can use an evaporative cooler--"swamp cooler","desert cooler"The unit looks like an AC but you fill a tank in it with water-a fan blows across the water in the tank-giving cooling.when I was a child-one of our houses had one.Dad would fill it with water in the spring and drain it-if necessary in the fall for winter.
A fellow here at work has a newer HVAC system that used a ECM motor for its main blower motor.Motor failed and would cost him something like over $500 to replace.So he added a contactor and used a standard fan motor-about 1/3 the cost.The orig motor only lasted a few years-enough that it was out of warrantee.High efficiency can be bult into machines--you don't need the "gee wiz" electronics and boards to do it.Oh yes an autopsy of the failed blower motor showed the electronics inside sealed in epoxy-could not be reapaired!!!If it wasn't the board possibly could have been fixed.We can repair boards here at work!Bet the motor otherwise would be fine.
 
I'm wondering how and when manufacturers started to care about making and marketing some High Efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps. Was that related to the first energy crisis? Or maybe a bit before? Two days ago, I just got a small capacity 1975 window air conditioner that displays it on it's front panel. I have one from 1974 that also has "HE" in it's model number (and a better EER too) but no mention of it on the front panel. I have seen Friedrich ads from the early 1970s which also claimed better efficiency.

Here are pictures from my new 1975 air conditioner.

philr-2015072600184201282_1.jpg

philr-2015072600184201282_2.jpg

philr-2015072600184201282_3.jpg

philr-2015072600184201282_4.jpg
 
I was being tongue-in-cheek. 120 degrees is pretty warm by any standard and can be life-threatening for some.

Maybe there is some thyroid thing going on that so many people are quite happy to sit in the cold, but as soon as the mercury goes above 73 they head straight for the air con.

I used to live in the tropics and never once did I feel the need to turn on my air conditioning and have always thought ceiling fans more than adequate, even for sleeping in very high humidity. Five months of constant hot weather and high humidity, with little variation, will actually cause most peoples' bodies to adapt to those conditions. It can't be healthy to persistently shift from hot to cold and vice versa. I reckon that is what amplifies the hot sensation and feeling of discomfort. From personal perception, most air conditioned spaces always seem to be far too cold. If the temperature outside and in the shade is above 90, inside spaces shouldn't be any colder than 77 degrees, but often they are cooled right down to between 73 and 68 degrees (and sometimes even colder), which actually shocks the body, especially when one is constantly on the move between the in and outside.
 
Gusherb has it correct

I get more complaints about systems higher than 13 SEER than anything else. If dehumidification is an issue the 16 SEER and up systems are often "tweeked" by lowering fan speed or used with a thermostat that can do so automatically by adjusting fan speed and/or delivering a temperature 1or2 degrees lower than set temp. At this point you are giving up some if not all of the extra efficiency that you paid for. I see no evidence that higher efficiency equates to longer life as combo52 states. The Whirlpool/Kenmore A/C units from the 70's into the early 80's were unbelievably reliable units. I still service a number of them today. The top models had a electronic "system monitor " board that where almost always removed early on but otherwise very few problems. Most units today come with a 10 year warranty. Repairs parts are very expensive on the complex systems like ECM motors and they are definitely failing earlier than the basic motors. What will (and already is ) happening is that the first big repair after the warranty is a good selling point for companies to convince customers to just put the big repair cost toward a new system and then you will have a 10 year warranty again. Thus the industry is headed toward a 10 year life span as opposed to the 20 that was.
 

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